Ben & Woods On Demand Podcast
Aug. 9th Hour 2: Jackson Merrill continues to impress
Now today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet Smart Money Podcast. Get your head in the financial game with smart investing and budgeting tips straight from the nerds. NerdWallet's experts will set future you up for success. With dependable fact-based insights, no financial misinformation allowed. Learn how to save on your summer vacation. Find your next credit card or loan for a big purchase and invest in your next index fund. Make smarter decisions in 2024. Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast app. Nothing is more important than getting a good night's sleep, and when you don't get the rest you need, your whole day is thrown off. That's why it's so important to choose the right mattress. Sleeping on a purple mattress is truly a unique experience because purple mattresses are made with a gel-flex grid. The gel-flex grid is an innovative material that moves with your body to relieve pressure in areas like knees and hips, and support in others like your back. It feels soft where you want it and supports where you need it. Purple mattresses instantly adapt when you move. You don't sink in and get stuck like with memory foam. And thanks to over 1,400 air chambers in the gel-flex grid, you will sleep cooler on a purple mattress. Purple has a wide variety of mattresses from the original purple mattress to the Restore Hybrid Collection, that combines gel-flex grid with coils and the Rejuvenate Lux Collection, the height of luxury. With over 112,000 to 5-star reviews to prove it, visit purple.com to find the perfect purple for you and enter code podcast10 to get 10% off. Now with the MLB app, you can get baseball your way. Pick your favorite team, your favorite players, and get customized highlights, stories and breaking news right on your home feed. Follow the action with Game Tip, where 3D replays add another dimension. Plus, notifications can keep you connected to every pinch, every hit, every game, the MLB app. Baseball, your way. Download it now for free from the App Store or Google Play. Block out another restriction supply, major league baseball trade parts used with permission. Benoit's back with you 7 a.m. on a Friday, and while, yes, the Padres were fortunate in that Bonneal crews threw that ball away and they ended up scoring the go-ahead runs. They were also very... I mean, it was putting together that rally and loading the bases against David Bednar in the 9th inning was good work. Yeah, Xander got a little dribbler, which was lucky, but Jackson Merrill's at bat was the one that really impressed me. Staggering. Knowing he had just hit a home run off that guy the day before and being a 21-year-old rookie, I can imagine the instinct would be, "All right, I'm going to come and do it again." Guess what? I'm going to go ahead and run this guy on in front of me. I'm going to put another good swing on this and I'm going to hit another home run. And it was chess because David Bednar and all star relievers out there going, "All right, he got me yesterday. I'm not... He's going to be aggressive here, so I'm going to try to throw some balls just off the zone." Maybe he was missing, but I kind of tend to think he was being careful with Jackson Merrill. He absolutely was being careful with him. Assuming that a young 21-year-old is going to be overly aggressive in that situation. Expand the zone, all of it. And one of the most mature at bats you're ever going to see from a guy that age. Just spitting on... You know what? Those aren't my pitches. -Not my pitch. -I'm not going to swing at those. And there were some borderline ones that Bednar didn't get the call on and wouldn't have wanted to see Jackson Merrill try to hit one on the outside corner up at the letters in that situation. Those are the pitches you're supposed to take. He took his walk. And ultimately, he ended up scoring the go-ahead run because he took a four-pitch walk when he was supposed to do that in the ninth inning. I don't know that the... I don't know that we fully understand it either, but I don't know that the common fan in that situation knowing, "Yeah, I've barreled this guy yesterday. He throws me a heater in the zone. I'm going to attack it." And maybe even if it's just a little bit up, maybe I can still get to it for him to be able to go in and just go, "No, no, no." His heartbeat bed must be like 60 beats a minute. I mean, it just doesn't really happen for a rookie at this pace that it's happened for Jackson Merrill. I'm just so impressed every time I watch him play baseball. The way he backs up the outfielders, the way that he throws the ball, the way that he gets to balls, the way that he hits and takes his singles and still has power, and it is pretty remarkable to watch that kid. He's up to a 289 average and a 787 OPS, which is very impressive as a rookie. The one thing that he can do a little more of, I mean, the OBP is 320, a little more walks like we just saw, but I feel like that's going to... That's going to come. You know, rookies generally, the OBP is the thing they're going to struggle with the most their first season. Everybody's a little over-aggressive, but you're seeing that patience, you're seeing the development just right in front of our eyes with Jackson Merrill. It's so, so impressive what he's doing. Again, I've had a lot of people ask me, you know, cronies struggling a little bit right now. I've had a lot of people ask me, "Why not flip-flop them in the order?" Look, it's hard to mess with... It's hard to mess with 14 out of 16. It just is... Yes, that's something that I think if you're the skipper you think about. If you're AJ Preller and your holistic approach with the lineup, I think you maybe think about it someday. I don't know that that day is today. I don't know when it is, but yeah, like it makes sense. It makes sense in my head, but we're not playing MLB The Show here. He has a spot. He's pretty consistent in it. You need balance throughout the lineup as well, and I just, I don't know. I don't know why they wouldn't move him up in the order, but right now, like I said, it's hard to argue with 14 out of 16. Well, he's kind of the anchor of the bottom of the order, which has been very productive. It's been great. Now, you could do that and move him up, but then all of a sudden with Kim, who's also been struggling, now you kind of have a bit of a black hole in part of your lineup. If you get... Yeah, I mean, listen, let's say you just flip-flop Crony and Merrill. The two lefty. Yeah, right. Merrill slides into the three hole and Crony goes down to the six. Seven, whatever. It's not the worst idea I've ever heard. Crony and worth probably wouldn't care. You know, it's one of those things where it's like, I think that he could do it. I think we all know he could do it. I don't think he really cares where he hits. And, you know, maybe that's something to think about down the stretch, Benny, or, you know, in a playoff game if you get there, but right for right now, man, 14 out of 16, it's hard to nitpick things about this team. I also feel comfortable saying Jake Cronenworth is going to have a few more big hits for this team going forward. If today was Jake Cronenworth's day, we just said it's bouncing around to everyone. It wouldn't shock me. I'm a little worried about Hassan Kim and his struggles at the plate, which seem fairly pronounced. He gets his walks, which is good. But other than that, I'm just not seeing great at bats from Hassan Kim lately. Yeah, I mean, same. Listen, it is what it is. This is the, these are the, these are the cards that were dealt at this point. And right now, you know, they're hitting a lot more black checks than they are anything else. So one other observation before I get to it, I want to throw out the phone lines for take on woods. We're going to play here in about four minutes, 833-288-0973, chance to win a trip to Las Vegas and carry underwood tickets. Give us a call now, 833-288-0973 and challenge woods in your musical trivia game for the day coming up here. So I heard Chris Ella talking about this and I had the exact same thought. So the Padres, um, get their three runs in the top of the ninth inning and that insurance run, the RBI by Louisa Rise, was huge, obviously massive when Robert Suarez comes in and gives up the run. Now, there was one of the dumbest baseball decisions. I've seen it in a long time by the Pittsburgh Pirates and Joey Bart in that ninth inning. When he tried to stretch a single to a double and you're down by two runs. Derek Shelton, the manager of the Pirates, I like, live it. He could have been easily out. Had that ball been held on to at second base, he would have been out. The game would have been over for no reason whatsoever because his run doesn't mean anything. You're down by two, two run homer to tie it. You can score it first just as well as you can from second. And by the way, the Padres probably would have just let him take second on defensive indifference on the next play. 100% they would have. And yet they, he put himself in jeopardy. It's, it really is shocking that a major, even a young major league baseball player like Joey Bart, couldn't read that situation and go unless I'm 115% sure I'm going to make it. You don't go to second in that situation. What do you think about the O'Neill Cruz throw? Cause I, you know, I, I watched it too. And I, I thought originally that Hagashi Oka was going to beat it out. I did too. Slowly but slowly. O'Neill Cruz has such a cannon. The ball got there before Hagashi Oka. I think had it been on target. The game is over. So you got to, you got to try to win the game here. Yeah, that's fair. I think you don't, you say, yeah, you should have ate, just held onto it and kept the tie game and had a chance to win into the bottom of the ninth. You get one more out, but I think you go for it there with that kind of arm. He just didn't execute. And you're a big leader. You got to execute that throw. Yeah, he's got 22 errors. He's still kind of learning the game at that level. I mean, he's a, he's a pretty, pretty interesting player. Six foot seven shortstop with, with crazy power and a hose for an arm. He's, he's a fun player to watch, but yeah, I'm, I'm really glad he threw that one away yesterday. So Padres will visit the Miami Marlins tonight and it was announced after the game. They'll just remain on rotation turn going through this series with Martin Perez today. Matt Waldron tomorrow and then Dylan Sees on Sunday in his normal spot, even though I only threw an inning because of the rain delay in his last outing, which likely means Joe Musgrove will return from the injured list. I would think Monday now against the Pirates back home at Petco Park. So that wasn't officially announced, but the, the turn, the next three just normal. There's a lot of TBAs for having absolutely no changes to your starting rotation on this road trip. They've just gone through like they have normally gone through, at least until this point, going through the Miami series. That is a 410 first pitch today. Sammy with the Eco Water SoCal pregame show at 310 Edward Cabrera. Right hander going to be on the mound for the Marlins tonight in game one of that series. All right. I see some of colors on the line. Let's get to it. It is time to take on woods. Time for take on woods. What? What? Randomly, I'm going to go with John. John, welcome to take on woods. How are you? Hello. Good morning. Take on woods brought to you by Valvoling Instant Oil Change. It only takes 15 minutes. You don't have to get out of your car for directions and discounts. Go to SoCalOilChange.com. That's SoCalOilChange.com. All right, we have three categories for you to choose from. If you can beat or tie woods, you'll be in our grand prize drawing for two nights at Resorts World Las Vegas. Pretty spectacular resort. And two tickets to carry underwood. Her residency at Resorts World Theatre. August 14th through October 26th. Tickets are on sale now at AXS.com and RW Las Vegas.com. Here are your cat day, John. We've got The Afterlife. Five song titles and artists, including the word after. Spreckensi Deutsch. Five bands or artists who made it big around the world. With German roots or Germany kind of related. And then still dreaming. Five more song titles that include the word dream. We had one of those earlier this week. So The Afterlife. Spreckensi Deutsch. Or still dreaming. John? Try still dreaming. Still dreaming. All right. Five more song titles. Again, all including the word dream. You'll have 60 seconds to get as many as possible. And then Woods goes. If you beat her time, you're in the drawing. First question's the two second song. Adam has a little music to play for you. You need to give me the title of the song and the artist to score that point. John, are you ready to play? All right. Adam, you're good? All right. Remember the category still dreaming. Dream the keyword here. Your time begins when Adam plays the music. Good luck, John. Let's take on Woods. Correct. Tom Petty references the Del Shannon song Runaway in the lyrics. That's not a dream. Correct. Which 2004 Green Day hit begins with the line, "I walk a lonely road. The only one I have ever known." Wow. The music video for which 1988 Billy Ocean hit was considered cutting edge at the time for its mix of animation. They're in the end dream. Incorrect. A former member of the Edgar Winter group, Dan Hartman had his only top 10 solo hit with his... I can hear you about you. Correct. Which 2004 Green Day hit begins with the line, "I walk a lonely road. The only one I have ever known." Can you go to the one I missed? No, you already missed it, unfortunately. It's like Jeffery. You don't get a second bite at the apple. You know what you did wrong. I know you did. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. You got three. Any guesses on Green Day? No. I don't know the titles in the... That's all right. A little newer one. Yeah. You said Caribbean Dream. It's Caribbean Queen. It's Get Out of My Dreams. Get Into My Car is the Billy Ocean song I was looking for. Boulevard of Broken Dreams is Green Day. You got the other ones. Dreamweaver. Running down a dream. I can dream about you. Let's hold on, John, and we'll see if Woods can come back with the score of three to beat here. All right. Woods, John's score is locked in. Woods doesn't get the category. Makes it a little bit tougher for him. See how he does on this one. Let's put 60 seconds back on the clock. Woods, your time begins when Adam plays the music. Good luck. Let's take on John. Dreamweaver. I'm Gary somebody. I'll come back. All right, Tom Petty references the Del Shannon song Runaway and the lyrics to which signature song from his first solo album in 1989. Runaway. Pass. Which 2004 Green Day hit begins with a line, "I Walk a Lonely Road, the only one I have ever known." I'm blanking right now. I'm choking so hard. I'm on the... Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Correct. The music video for which 1988 Billy Ocean hit was considered cutting edge at the time for it's mix of animation and live action. Get out of my dreams. Get into my car. Correct. A former member of the Edgar Winter group Dan Hartman had his only top 10 solo hit with his 1984 song for the movie Streets of Fire. Ooh. Pass. All right, go back to the two second song. It's the artist. Gary something. I don't know. Pass. Gary Taint. Tom Petty references the Del Shannon song Runaway and the lyrics to which signature song from his first solo album in 1989. Not a dream. Correct. Let's go back to a former member of the Edgar Winter group. Mark Hartman had his only top 10 solo hit with which 1984 song for the movie Streets of Fire. No idea. All right. That's a tie. That's three three. Congratulations. John. Gary. It's not wrong. Gary. Not wrong. Gary Wright. Oh, yeah. All right. Good job, John. And then last one was I can dream about you. Oh, I can dream about you. Dan Hartman. John Parr. Apparently it's Dan Hartman. John, hang on the line. Adam will get your information for the drawing for Las Vegas. Congratulations on still dreaming. Good job today. All right. Don't do this. It's coming up next. I've got a do-do-do-this that we missed yesterday that made me so very, very happy. It was. Good moment from the Padres broadcast this week. Yeah. Woods you would like to highlight. I listened to it a hundred times. I actually made its way to Reddit yesterday. It's so good. We'll play that for you next. Do you ever don't do this? Yeah, we'll, uh, I'll figure it out for you. Don't worry. I've got a depressing story that I would like to maybe not do. Oh, no. So, all right. We'll just see what we end up with. Captain Traffic here on 97.3 The Fan. Nice. Today's episode is sponsored by Nerd Wallet Smart Money Podcast. Get your head in the financial game with smart investing and budgeting tips straight from the nerds. Nerd Wallet's experts will set future you up for success. With dependable, fact-based insights, no financial misinformation allowed. Learn how to save on your summer vacation. Find your next credit card or loan for a big purchase and invest in your next index fund. Make smarter decisions in 2024. Follow Nerd Wallet's Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast ad. Nothing is more important than getting a good night's sleep. And when you don't get the rest you need, your whole day is thrown off. That's why it's so important to choose the right mattress. Sleeping on a purple mattress is truly a unique experience because purple mattresses are made with a gel flex grid. The gel flex grid is an innovative material that moves with your body to relieve pressure in areas like knees and hips and support in others like your back. It feels soft where you want it and supports where you need it. Purple mattresses instantly adapt when you move. You don't sink in and get stuck like with memory foam. And thanks to over 1,400 air chambers in the gel flex grid, you will sleep cooler on a purple mattress. Purple has a wide variety of mattresses from the original purple mattress to the restore hybrid collection that combines gel flex grid with coils and the rejuvenate lux collection, the height of luxury, with over 112,000 to 5 star reviews to prove it. Visit purple.com to find the perfect purple for you and enter code podcast10 to get 10% off. Now with the MLB app, you can get baseball your way. Pick your favorite team, your favorite players, and get customized highlights, stories, and breaking news right on your home feed. Follow the action with Games In, where 3D replays add another dimension. Plus notifications can keep you connected to every pinch, every hit, every game. The MLB app, baseball your way. Download it now for free from the App Store or Google Play. Block out another research and supply major league baseball trademarks used with permission. Don't do this. It's time for Don't Do This. What were you thinking? Three stories from the world of sports that make us all shake our heads. Why? How many times do I have to tell you? I'm sorry, I fudged up guys. You idiot. You moron. Don't do that. The apple sometimes does far fall from the tree. Don't do this. Do not tweet that. With Ben and Woods. I like a Nickelback song or two. A 97-3, the fan. Don't do this. Brought to you by the Craft Taco in Sorrento Valley. I am so jealous that Polly got to go this week. Looked delicious. He posted it on the Instagram feed of his fish taco, the Dorado fish taco, and the Mulgogi taco that he had. Check out those tacos at Craft Taco dot com. Look at their Happy Hour specials today at Craft Taco dot com. All right. I'm going to start with the audio from the pie. We have that? Yeah. So I'm going to get it started and don't do this. Got a tweet from one of our tier ones. El Carlos, the real El Carlos on Twitter. Pirates broadcast casually calling jerks and pro far unprofessional. So as we mentioned earlier in the show, Randy Vasquez came out and hit Brian Reynolds on the calf. Who's calf or thigh? I would say. Yeah. It's kind of just beside the knee. Yeah. Below the knee. I just watched it. So kind of on the calf after a jerks and pro far had been plunked. A couple times in that series ended up getting plunked four times. Listen to how the pirates broadcasters spun this one. Right at the knee. Retaliation. The same spot. Yep. Wow. Man. And exactly the same spot as yesterday. Reynolds doesn't react at all. Hey, he did. Well, he looks out there. He looks out and gave him a little head nod. Yeah, like, okay, we're even now. Didn't throw the helmet. Didn't jump up. Oh, walk down the line. In fact, he walked over, picked up the ball, gave it to the bat boy. So here you go. That's... That's a pro. That's a riddle right there. That's a riddle. He does. He's just settled down guys. Settle down with the... That's how a pro does it. That's what a pro does. I think jerks and pro far took 95 basically to like... The patella. There was no meat involved in that one that he took. When he took 95 of the knee, I think that was probably the most... He wasn't... I really don't think he was mad at the pitcher. He's mad at the pain. And threw the helmet, like, sort of a... Urgh, this hurts, right? And again, yeah, Brian Reynolds probably knew that was coming. I thought it was done in a really... The right way to do it, I guess. But I didn't really like them kind of... Roundabout taking shots at pro far not, you know, calling him not a professional. Well, I mean, not it. Neither did they say it, but they implied it. If you couldn't see the video, you're not on our YouTube stream. When they're talking, then they just casually cut to jerks and pro far and the outfield. They're implying what they're saying. Brian Reynolds did handle it. He did. There's no doubt about that. But so did jerks and pro far. Absolutely. He got hit again. What did he do? He smiled. He smiled. That's all he did. You guys kidding me? Four times in this series? You've hit me? Four. But if anyone wants to... I mean, it was pretty clear. Randy Vasquez, and we're not sure about any other instances this season. But that one, knowing that Brian Reynolds is their two hitter, just like jerks and pro far as the Padres two hitter, put it right in the same spot. I mean, like dotted, I mean, almost as they said, the exact same spot. It was like a dart. It was like throwing it. It wasn't to lead off the end. He was one out. It was a message sent, received, and they did move on. Now, pro far got hit again. He did. That one was kind of a backwards slider type thing. That was just like, okay, this is almost comical at this point. Well, and just quickly, this is pretty amazing. You know, she'll set after the game. They're pitching him tough. We don't feel like there's a lot of intent, but he gets old after a while. He took exception with it as I did as well. But anyway, we move on. He's a tough ombre. But I loved what Randy Vasquez said. Said it's a beautiful relationship, a beautiful friendship that we have. He is someone that, since I got here, he's always encouraged me, helped me and really kind of encouraged me to never hang my head. He's a great teammate. And I promise you, I promise you, jerks and pro far certainly appreciated that from Randy Vasquez yesterday. All right. We're getting late in the Olympics. And, you know, after a couple of weeks, there's just enough opportunities for people to get into trouble. This one happened in Paris. Not with a an athlete this time. Just a spectator, a famous spectator, rapper Travis Scott, was at the luxury George V hotel early Friday morning, when police were called to break up a fight. The fight was between Travis Scott and, I guess it was a hotel security guard. But apparently, according to police, the security guard was trying to break up another fight between Travis and his own body guard who had gotten into a fight at the hotel as well. So now, Travis Scott is fighting two security guards. And this all comes just as charges were dropped against Travis Scott in another case in Miami for getting into a heated argument with a yacht worker back in June. So now he's facing charges in Paris, just the ugly Americans in Paris, a couple of incidents during the Olympics. I'm pretty much ready for it to be done. You have to go metal games and basketball and soccer coming up. A couple more big track and field events. Had a big story about no miles in the COVID running with COVID. Yep. Getting the bronze medal yesterday. Two weeks is a long time for me. I'm good. It was fun. Let's move on. Yeah. I'm ready. When is it then? Sunday is the closing ceremony. We'll look forward to that, Greg. All right, and then now for do do this. That's your... Me, Dean, Mega, do do. Wasn't sure. I got to give this to Don Arcillo. Watching this game, I forgot to mention it yesterday. It made its way over to Reddit. Don Arcillo makes a lot of great calls. This one got me laughing so hard. Mud as well. You guys probably know the play from a couple of nights ago. Gonzalez on the mound for the pirates and Manny Machado at the plate. Manny hits that little squibber. And Gonzalez tries to make the play on it. And this kind of slipped out from Don Arcillo. Rolled down the third baseline. The pitcher gets off. It'll stumble. His throw is terrible. It's not going to first. Manny will reach. That was an honest assessment. I was trying to... Why wasn't so funny? Because it was a terrible throw. It was just honest. It'd be so good. Usually he'd say the throw is offline. The throw is terrible. Play it again, please. Adam, please. It's not like it was the easiest play to make, obviously. No. He was falling away and trying to make an insane play. But it was just so far away from being anywhere near the first baseman. The Don hat. I mean, he had to point it out. Play it again, please. Here it comes. Rolled down the third baseline. The pitcher gets off. So to stumble his throw is terrible. It's not going to first. Manny will reach. It's over. That was an honest assessment. He got me so good, man. He always gets me, but that one for some reason just sent me. So you're probably wondering, "Well, why don't we hear more of that from broadcasters?" Just some brutal honesty. Because I'm sure Don's worried, even for an opposing team. Of course. The player's going to hear it. Then he's going to go down in a locker room one day and they go, "Hey, I heard you said I made a terrible throw." And it's like, "Well, you did, dude. I mean, it was a terrible throw." But I think you could defend that. Mud said he had an interaction with Kyle Higashyoka the other day in the lobby. He said, "I think I owe you an apology." And he said, "Why? What happened?" He said, "Oh, I think he said he boxed the balls." All the knuckle balls from that wall. The knuckle balls from that wall. He was having a really tough day catching him the other day. He was like, "It's fine." Bro, I don't care. It's terrifying. Yeah, it looks, it does look comical when he's trying to catch those knuckle balls. Yeah, it's waving his mitts back there with no idea where it's going. But I mean, you can totally tell that that kind of slipped out from Don O'Rcello and it was really, really good. That is, don't and do do this on a Friday. That was, don't do this. With Ben & Woods, a 97-3 the fan. It was Ben V. Dodger's fans last night on social media. I try not to wade into it. I wish that the shoe was on the other foot. I waded into it this time. We'll talk about that. We also have some pottery's pirates tickets to give away before the end of the show. For Monday's game, stay tuned for that. And Jake Mintz from Cespas Family Barbecue at the top of the hour, a busy Friday. All leading to our manager's report with Mike Schildt at 9 o'clock ahead with Ben & Woods, a 97-3 the fan. I wish a very happy birthday to one of our most loyal and dedicated tier ones. Because by Articulate Saylor on Twitter, you may remember him. If you played in the Ben & Woods Open this year, he flipped a golf cart. So he's the guy that flipped the golf cart. Do you know about that yet? Yes, I did. I was trying to keep it as much under wraps as possible because, you know, I'm going out to the goat today. And I don't really want that getting around. One of our tier ones flipped one of their brand new golf carts. Yeah, it was an accident. Got the GPS and everything. The cooler is really nice. Accidents happen. It was not a drunk. It was not a drunken display yet later in the day it was. But when he flipped the cart, he was stone cold sober. I can vouch and just caught a curb and flipped over. But happy birthday to Articulate Saylor. Happens to a share a birthday with a member of the Padres organization. Sure does. But maybe we'll just keep that in a wraps for a little while. You don't have to. You just say it. Okay. Yeah. The manager Mike Schilt is also celebrating a birthday today. Happy birthday. How old is Mike Schilt? It's a great question. Is he older or younger? Okay. He's older than me and us. Well, I'm older than you now. My new is older than us. 51. 56 today. Okay. 56 today. Happy 56. I have heard through the grapevine he's not a huge birthday guy. Which doesn't surprise me. And actually what I heard was he really likes other people's birthdays more. So he's the opposite of my wife. He's like boom or a science in that way. Loves other people's other people's birthdays. So happy birthday to the skipper. All right. Well, I waited in a territory I probably shouldn't have waited into last night. Well, hang on here. Cole Schmidt. Happy birthday to you Cole. Happy birthday EST three in the chat. All right. There we go. That's done all the August 9th birthdays in the world now taken care of. I waited into Dodgers Twitter last night. It's never. It's not a pretty place to be. But just felt I had to do it. I'll tell you why coming up right after this check of traffic. Seven three the fam. So I saw this tweet going around from a Dodger fan named Jake and AIDS. Not, you know, doesn't have a ton of followers. But it was retweeted a couple of times and made its way into my timeline. He has a humiliation fetish. Just by the way. It was like a posting tweet. You know, and nothing he tweeted, I believe was inaccurate. So I want to I want to start there. I believe he's absolutely correct when he tweeted the Dodgers have a hundred and fourteen million dollars worth of payroll on the injured list right now LMAO. Yes, that's the highest in baseball by a lot. And the next highest is seventy two million Astros difference between the Dodgers and the Astros is bigger than the difference between second and 16. Why did why did this ruffle your feathers so much? Now your fat your feathers don't really get yeah, I mean it wasn't directed at the Padres or anything. But I it just bothered me a little bit that no one really seemed to care all the years where the Dodgers were taking advantage of other teams injuries and you know having fairly healthy seasons and now all of a sudden that there the shoe is on the other foot here. They're looking for sympathy because none was offered to other teams, especially us, you know it when we had Fernando Tatiss out for the year and you know other players. I was told multiple times by multiple Dodger fans that excuses happen and if you have organizational depth then they shouldn't be an issue and they develop players we don't etc etc etc. We got to the playoffs Benny we had no pitching, no pitching, no it's not an excuse you you know play better right and listen that is the way of baseball I'm not going to make excuses using injuries. I mean it yeah I mean obviously they they add up but I've been told for years what a what a perfectly run organization it is and how much depth they have and it's it's starting to bite them a little bit. But context is also important so I just wanted to add a little context. You like adding context. I did. So I tweeted back well you know Padres have over 50 million on the injured list right now maybe not as much of the Dodgers but that's a lot including the restricted list now with you being transferred over and it just about a you know three weeks ago 75 million when Xander Bogart's was out and that's actually a higher percentage a much higher percentage of our payroll than the Dodgers payroll. So while 114 million sounds like a lot it is a lot according to baseball reference. The current Dodger payroll right now 387 million which means that's like between a quarter and a third of the payroll whereas the Padres at this moment have almost a third of the payroll and that's before Xander was out before when he was out there more than a third of their payroll on the injured list. So you know there are a lot of teams and the Braves have you know a ton of talent on the payroll it doesn't it's not even on the injured list it doesn't even necessarily matter who's on the injured list. How much talent do you have on the injured list and and clearly Mookie Betz is a big loss. Sure. And has been for the Dodgers most of this season and you know having some of their pitchers like Yamamoto on the injured list is big but the Braves you know their Spencer Strider and Ronald de Koon you junior and Aussie albies I mean you could say that the Padres obviously Fernando Tetis Jr Joe Musgrove you Darvish all on the injured list man there are lots of teams that have lots of star players the Astros have dealt with a ton of injuries as they pointed out much higher percentage of their payroll is on the injured list than the Dodgers injured list. The defending World Series champion Texas Rangers I mean yeah it look there's there's really no excuse and again you can't doubt how how smart and great your development is and you know how how lush and talented all your prospects are if you know you're really struggling to win baseball games I mean they basically been a 500 team for a couple of months now. So listen it's it's you got to take advantage when a team is when a team if there's blood in the water you got to strike. Of course they pushed back on semantics he said well I mean 50 still way less and you can't count Xander because he's he's back now I mean you know should we count Freddie Freeman for the you know a few days he missed while he was tending to his son and I said do whatever he wants. I don't really care and and I can see that I said I'm happy to award the Dodgers the trophy for most injured team if that's what you're going for. I look at you. I like this. So congratulations to the twenty twenty four Los Angeles Dodgers the most injured the most injured team in baseball we will tip our cap to you for that designation this year. Yeah for sure for sure now I listen now you got to be careful they're gonna start sending you hate mail that look like a kidnap letters which I've gotten three of so far so. But no they they definitely have been dealing with a lot of injuries. Yes. They are getting a little healthier. Yeah I mean they're also supposed to come back. Yeah they're also finding that sometimes when those guys come back especially the pitchers it's not really the same at least right away that they need more than just you know a starter two to be locked in. Kershaw was better his next start after the Padres kind of got to him looked a little bit better the next time out. I don't know exactly where he is I wouldn't be counting on huge things from Clayton Kershaw the rest of the year. You know and I haven't I watch a little you know watch a little bit of the games like I watched some of the Dodgers Phillies game the other night because I needed to sleep and Joe Davis was on so I I watched some of that. But yeah man I'm just kind of really focused on what the pods are doing because if they keep winning ball games I mean it's gonna it's gonna there's a real chance that you know they're nervous man isn't they should be two and a half games back nobody thought the pods would be this close and nobody thought the Dodgers would be a 500 team you know in the last few months so keep doing what you're doing everybody. So now the Dodgers play the pirates for the next three games and the pressure is kind of on because they know the Padres just swept the pirates so you feel like well now we got a suite of pirates if we want to keep pace but of course you know worked out pretty well they get Mitch Keller 10 game winner tonight against the Pirates against Jack Flaherty and then skeens will pitch tomorrow against River Ryan in game two of that series that's an appointment view you know if things worked out pretty well for the Padres in terms of these matchups which means if skeens is pitching on Saturday then he won't be able to pitch until at least Thursday of next week after the pirates have already left San Diego so Padres will miss him twice both of the series against the pirates no Paul Skeens well you need a little luck don't you yeah yeah as much as I'd like to see Paul Skeens pitch and I'd love to see how you know he strikes out a lot of guys we don't strike out a ton I like that kind of a battle but yeah man any chance you take to miss a guy like that you're finally I think at the start of the week the Padres were four and a half games back you were still in vacation and I said if you want to win the division this is a week where you have to make up at least a couple of games I want to see a you know two and a half back by the end of the week well they're already two and a half back and now you've got the Miami Marlins an opportunity to continue your run and we'll see what the Dodgers do against the Pirates and against Skeens and against Keller tonight but there's no chance you can pick up another game or maybe even to this weekend if things break really well and if you do that then it's basically a coin flip race the rest of the way now I'm telling you guys pottery fans right now think about this everyone is clamoring for Jackson Merrill to win rookie of the year but you still want Paul Skeens to go out and be absolutely dominant against the Dodgers so yeah you're up you're up against it a little bit there I personally would like to see Steens shove against the Dodgers that's what I'm I'm putting my vote in for I don't I don't care really about the rookie of the year because I want to see this team do something you don't care about it as well but just if you now that the Pirates are two games under 500 and falling out of the race there's a good argument to be made that when you get to September you're going to shut down schemes yeah race and that is going to have a big impact if Jackson Merrill is pushing in a pennant race and helping the Padres toward the playoffs or a division title and has a decent September while Skeens is just sitting there you know protecting his arm for 2025 that'll that'll swing a lot of voters Jackson Merrell's way if they had the vote right now I think Skeens would probably still win but they don't vote now there's still a month and a half left of the season and we may not see Skeens more than three or four more times if the if the pirates are going to be conservative and they're out of it why would you throw him no no reason that many innings there's no reason to do that but it could impact the rookie of the year race so while I was on social media yesterday and seeing all these Dodgers tweets right in the middle of all my notices I was surprised to see a familiar face does anyone remember Steve in Coronado music teacher Steve who had put together another video and he is not is not giving up on his personal quest I thought it was the same video so I had to check the date on the tweet then I had to go because I've I really don't even know what date I had to go look at my phone to make sure that that was actually yesterday's date and it happened again you got another another tweet I don't know if I I think I love my family as much as Steve in Coronado likes the Bunt I this message is directed to Mike Schilt and AJ Preller hi my name is Steven Bruce I want to address a weakness the Padres have even though they're getting better and starting to get past this weakness but it's a weekly teams have is the ability to lay down a bunt especially a suicide squeeze with a runner at third base with less than two outs to drive in the winning run or a crucial run in a playoff game and or the World Series I believe if the Padres adapt this this measure this skill that I'll explain they will be in the World Series this year in 2024 and win the World Series in 2024 now so this is what the Padres need to do to show up this weakness every day for each batter gets into the batting cage with the pitching machine and is graded the grades on 10 pitches to make it easy one day could be 10 102 mile an hour fastball so the next day it could be one hundred and four and they're graded on these 10 pitches per day and those grades are simulated with trends and sent to Mike Schilt so Mike you will have that chart every day in the dugout and when the timing is right you can call that suicide squeeze and when a crucial playoff game and or the World Series this skill can be developed within six weeks if the Padres get started on it by mid August okay I've again we've heard this argument before from from Steve and he's very passionate about the bunting I feel like we've won a lot what we do and I pointed out to him that the Padres now lead all of Major League Baseball in bunt singles and are second only to the Diamondbacks and sacrifice bunt this year and if I'm not mistaken Major League Baseball is the highest level of baseball in which you're facing the toughest pitchers with the nastiest stuff we throw the hardest to have the most break on their pitches so if you're bunting at the highest level of any team in Major League Baseball that already makes you the best bunters in the world correct correct so the argue the Padres are the best bunters in the world is it possible Steve that they are already doing something correctly here now does he I think I think what would make him feel better is that if he could see the grades posted every day like oh crony monster day in the bunt challenge a plus across the board uh Manny not such a good days in the in the red but I don't know man I just again I think they're they're bunting a ton and sometimes it works and and yeah I mean the bunt singles Bryce Johnson Tyler Wade um you know the rise got one down recently I mean they've good bunters on this team yeah maybe too good correct sometimes it sometimes it does feel like oh wow somebody is not wanting to hit right now and wanting to move guys over Jackson Merrill laid one down on this trip hated that one hated it absolutely hated it loathed it's uh every second of it I love the safety squeeze they've they've employed it a couple times this year safety squeeze is it's almost did it's a Clayton Kershaw which by the way could have been an out at home play not boxed it do but a well executed safety squeeze bro it's it's indefensible like there's nothing you can do to defend it so um I I like where his heads at but I just I don't know I don't know that they could do any more right I think they're doing enough I think they're doing too much but I think that I think that they're doing it enough right now but he's still not satisfied and apparently somebody I didn't see this but he's sending it now to the players and he's tagging players in it so I did not see this uh yet but you know look I I love the three run homer I don't mind the bunt for a hit certain I don't really like giving up outs early in a game early in a game in the second inning your three hole hitter drops a bunt down it doesn't doesn't really do it for me uh when you have a chance to get to put a picture on the ropes and have a big inning but I mean I think I mean each their own it's almost getting predictable like first and third one out and Bryce Johnson comes up I know it's coming yeah so at some point the other team is also going to figure out that the bunt is coming which kind of weird that they haven't it makes it left less effective yeah it's it's like when I used to go to a Chargers games it was second and one and I'd yell here comes the handoff to Lorenzo Neil right because they do that every time it's second and one I could stop that play because I know exactly it's coming you do enough scouting on the Padres you know when the buns are coming right you've got an instinct as a fan watching oh they're bunting here right oh yeah yeah I get it I get it too that's why I feel like the opponents are going to start figuring out as well yeah and then it becomes really unaffected because you know what Major League Baseball defenders are usually really good so many people have said please play this for Mike Shilt there's no way that I'm playing that for Mike Shilt if somebody especially on his birthday I know if somebody in PR wants to send you know show it to him I'm not I'm not going to be the one to say hey skip you got a minute and a half here to hear what you should be doing better no I'm not doing that sorry I don't know that he would get the mitt by the way Mike Shilt pretty detail oriented yes takes his craft of getting his team ready fairly seriously very seriously I'm sure he has a method for making sure that if they need to get a blunt down that they've been practicing it from spring training and I bet he's confident in his his teaching methods as well do yeah do you want to ask him no no I do not want to ask him I don't either I don't either I really don't do you think that's the last video you'll get this season I thought the last video was the last video I was going to get this season all right he didn't acknowledge yeah you're doing better on better well why don't you just then say good job good job things are well done keep it up keep it up right exactly never satisfied man no we'll come back with a Jake Mintz s but his family barbecue next here on 97 3 the fam today's episode is sponsored by nerd wallets smart money podcast get your head in the financial game with smart investing and budgeting tips straight from the nerds nerd wallets experts will set future you up for success with dependable fact based insights no financial misinformation allowed learn how to save on your summer vacation find your next credit card or loan for a big purchase and invest in your next index fund make smarter decisions in 2024 follow nerd wallet smart money podcast on your favorite podcast app trying to figure out what to eat for dinner yet again with nor sides and bullion is your not so secret ingredient you can skip the drive through and do dinner at home nor taste combos provide a menu of delicious affordable and well balanced meals that you can prepare in 30 minutes or less visit nor dot com to get quick and easy recipe ideas for your home cooked weeknight dinners it's not fast food but it's so good now with the MLB app you can get baseball your way pick your favorite team your favorite players and get customized highlights stories and breaking news right on your home feed follow the action with game tip where 3d replays add another dimension plus notifications can keep you connected to every pitch every hit every game the MLB app baseball your way download it now for free from the app store or Google play block out another research and supply major league baseball trade parts used with permission